


My House/Your House

by orphan_account



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Gen, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Minor Frank Iero/Gerard Way, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Second Person, minor frank iero/jamia iero, minor relationship stuff but that's not the main content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-07
Updated: 2016-12-07
Packaged: 2018-09-07 03:44:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8781649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Frank Iero finds himself trapped in a house that is not his own, but belongs to him. In order to escape he must travel upwards and confront the things and people that lie within.





	1. Demons in the Basement

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this originally for the Bandom Mini Bang on tumblr, but I don't know what happened to that, so I'm posting it now on my own

You don't know the woman standing in front of you, but you’re certain that she’s responsible for your being here, though you don’t know where ‘here’ is. You might be dreaming, but everything seems too solid, and you’ve never had a lucid dream in your life. The woman has bright eyes and dark skin and a large ankh on a black string hanging around her neck. And she’s young, younger than you, or she looks like she is, anyway. 

“Frank,” she says. “Hi.” Her voice is pleasantly melodic and cheerful, almost too cheerful. You watch her reach over and flick a light switch on with a soft  _ click _ , illuminating the room you're standing in. 

You look around. You're standing in a dark basement, or at least, you think it’s a basement. You can’t see much. “Where are we?” you ask, because that's suddenly the most important question you have. 

“Your house,” the woman says. 

“ _ My _ house?” you ask, pointing to yourself. This place looks nothing like the place you bought with Jamia in New Jersey. “This isn't my house. I've never seen it before.”

The woman laughs, or giggles, rather. “Of course it's your house,” she says. “You built it, and everything in it is yours.” She sniffs and looks around the basement. “Needs a bit of cleaning, though.”

“Cleaning?”

“Yes, clearing out,” the woman explains impatiently, as if this should be obvious. “You should wander through it, see who you can get rid of.”

You look around, but you can't see anything through the dark of the basement. Maybe that's all this place is. Wherever you are, whatever the reasons for your being here, you have to get out. You shuffle over until you feel a wall, cold cinderblock underneath your fingers. You then stumble through the dark, keeping your eyes peeled for some sort of stair. 

Only you don't find any stairs. Instead, you feel a lightswitch, and you do a silent Hail Mary. You click it, and rows and rows of fluorescent lights flicker on, one by one.

It’s your garage, back in your childhood home. You’d know it anywhere. Steel shelves line the walls and tools litter the floor. Then you see him. Your dad, standing with his back to you, messing around with some stuff on the shelves. 

“Frank!” he calls. 

“Uh, yeah?” you ask. He looks younger now than he did the last time you saw him. 

“Have you seen the adjustable wrench?” he asks. He may be younger, but he’s no less scatter brained. 

“Have you checked the toolbox?” you ask. The wrench is always in the toolbox, but he never looks in the toolbox. 

“Of course I’ve checked the toolbox!” your dad replies. He always says he’s checked the toolbox, but he never actually has. 

You go over to another one of the shelves, and you pull out the toolbox. You flip it open, and, lo and behold, there is the combination wrench. “Got it!” you call over to him. 

“Thank Christ,” he mutters. “Where was it?” he asks, turning around and walking over towards you. 

“The toolbox,” you answer. 

“Really? Huh. I could’ve sworn I checked there already. I need to start putting that wrench in less obvious places, start using reverse-psychology on myself,” he muses. “You’re a good kid, you know that?”

“Course,” you reply. 

“Good, you should know it. I dunno what I’d do without you in the house,” he continues. 

You know what he did without you in the house. He was a mess until he got remarried. She was a little more willing to pick up after him than Mom was. “You’d manage,” you tell him. 

“You’re underselling yourself, kid,” your dad says. “Couldn’t ask for a better son. Now go find your mom, she’s probably got lunch ready for you.” 

“Uh, Dad?” you ask. 

“What?” 

“Do you, uh, know where the stairs are?” 

Your dad laughs. “Son, if you don’t know your way around your own house, you’re more hopeless than I am.” 

Right. Perfect. You squeeze your eyes shut, forcing down the frustration that’s welling up inside you. When you open them, the lights are off again. Well that’s even better. You have no sense of where your mom or the stairs or the woman with the ankh necklace could be, so you run. You break out into a run through the pitch blackness until you hear a splash underneath your foot and you slip and go crashing to the ground, ending up face down in a puddle. It just gets fucking worse and worse. “Fuck me,” you mutter as you sit up. 

“Language, young man!” a voice calls from the darkness. 

“Mom?” you call back. 

“Oh, what kind of mess have you gotten yourself into now,” she cries as she comes into view. A light miraculously has appeared above your head. “Running in the basement, falling in puddles. Why are you even playing down here?” 

“I-” 

“Never mind,” she sighs. “I don’t want to know. Stand up.” 

You’re momentarily paralyzed, so you just sit there, staring at her. 

“Stand up!” she repeats, making a little motion with her hand. 

You stand up. 

Your mom takes in your face then licks her thumb and begins to wipe at your chin. 

“Mooooom,” you groan. 

“Frank Iero, you are a mess,” she says, and she wipes away the water from the puddle. “You’re going to have to clean yourself up, or you’re going to end up just like your father.” 

“Mom,” you groan again. 

“I know, I know, I have to stop babying you eventually,” she sighs. “But you seriously shouldn’t be playing in the basement. It’s not safe, and it’s certainly not pleasant.” 

“I’ll get out of the basement,” you promise her.  _ I’ve been trying for what feels like forever, _ you don’t add. 

You look around, but you can't see much further than where you're standing. It seems like a standard unfinished New Jersey basement, and you turn around to ask the woman why you're here, but she's gone. Of course. You keep moving until you see a dim light in the distance. Finally! You hurry towards it, being careful not to slip again. It’s a single naked lightbulb hanging precariously on a wire above an old card table, which is partially covered by what looks to be a cross-stitched rag. You walk over to the table and run your fingers over the rough wood. Suddenly you recognize it. It was the card table in your grandpa’s house, and your grandpa and your dad and your uncles would all sit around it playing poker and smoking cigarettes. Well, your dad and uncles would smoke cigarettes. Your grandpa smoked cigars. 

That's when you hear a voice. “Frankie, what are you doing down here?” 

Your whirl around. “Grandpa?”

“Of course it's me. Why d’you wanna be down here? It's dark and musty.” Grandpa looks the same as always, with callused fingers and warm, watery eyes. He has his guitar over his shoulder. 

“Your guitar,” you say, reaching out to touch it. 

Grandpa laughs. “Not today, son. When you're older, maybe. But I can tell, you've got music in your blood. Makes you an Iero.” He has a twinkle in his eye as he says this. “Now, run along and find your parents. They're around here somewhere.” 

“No,” you tell him. “Stay.” You’ve missed him, and seeing like this, so much younger than before, sends an ache rippling through your chest. 

“Really?” Grandpa asks, laughter in his voice. “If you say so.” He reaches back into the darkness and pulls out an old wooden folding chair and sits down upon it. He then slides the guitar around into his lap. “Anything you want me to play?”

You shake your head. You just want to hear him sing again. 

He strums the guitar softly and launches into an old Italian lullaby, one your mom’s sung to you before. You sit down on the concrete floor in front of him, and watch as he falls into a trance as he plays. The music travels around you, warm and sweet, and the world feels right again. More right than it has in a while. 

Then it ends. “Alright, Frankie. It’s time for me to leave now,” Grandpa says. “You have to go home.” 

You stand up quickly. “I don’t want to go home.” 

Grandpa laughs and ruffles his hair. “All good things must come to an end. But don’t worry, you’ll see me again soon.” 

_ But I won’t _ , you want to say, but instead you just open and close your mouth like a fish before giving into impulse and latching onto his arm. “Please don’t leave,” you tell him.

“Let me go, Frank,” Grandpa says, gently pulling his arm from your grasp then taking hold of your shoulder and spinning you around to face away from him. “You have to keep moving.” Then he’s gone. You don’t have to turn around to know that he’s not there anymore, faded into the darkness like an old memory. 

The basement is seemingly endless, but you try not to get disheartened. You can't be stuck down here forever, can you? You're not even sure if ‘here’ is really real, but it doesn't quite seem fake either, like the animation in the Polar Express movie. Man, that movie was right in the uncanny valley. Then, before you know it, she's standing right in front of you. Meg. Meg, the girl next door. Literally. Meg with pigtails and fire in her eyes. Meg, who loaned you her comic books and went with you on imaginary quests. Meg who sh- never mind. You don’t want to think about that. 

“Frank!” she exclaims, running over to you and flinging her arms around your waist. “I thought you got lost.”

“I’m right here,” you reply weakly. 

“Jeez, this basement is bigger than I thought. We should get out of here.” She takes you by the hand, her tiny palm just barely wrapping around your large fingers. “Did you see any monsters while you were lost?” she asks. 

“Nope,” you reply. You don't think you did. At least, you didn't see anyone who looked like a monster, or acted like one. 

“Mama always said that Hell is God’s basement,” Meg continues. “And demons live there, so I shouldn't run around in basements because I might meet a demon. But I think she just told me that to scare me and keep me from getting my clothes dirty.” She turns back to look at you with big eyes. “Do you think there are any demons in this basement?” she asks.

“No, no demons here,” you reply. Well, there's nothing that Meg would consider a demon here. But this basement is wearing on you, and maybe, just maybe, this is what hell is like. Getting pushed into and endless dark full of lost people and forgotten images. 

“Good, but we should head up anyway.”

“Maybe we could find a lightswitch,” you suggest. You could really use some light in your life right now. 

“Pfft, no way!” Meg exclaims. “Lights are for wusses. And you're not a wuss. Right, Frank Iero?” 

“Right…” you agree softly. When you were younger you were a lot more adamant about not being a wuss, but right now, you just want out. 

“You're the one who wanted to go on this adventure in the first place,” she continues. “It was your idea. It's  _ your  _ basement, too.”

“Wait...this is my basement?” you ask. 

“Of course it is, dummy!” Meg replies. “My house’s basement isn't safe, and whose else would it be? This is  _ your  _ house.”

“Right...my house,” you sigh. 

Then, you round a corner, and you see them. Stairs. Holy shit. There they are. You almost weep with relief. 

“Here we are,” Meg announces. “After you, Frank.” 

“Are you coming with me?” you ask. You're somehow comforted by her presence, despite how young she is and how long it's been since you've thought about her, and you're unsure as to what horrors the next floor could possibly bring, so you don't want to go alone. 

“Of course. But I've gotta make sure that the demons don't get you while you're climbing the stairs. I'm putting your life before mine,” she says proudly. 

“Yeah, okay,” you say, though you know she'll vanish as soon as she’s out of sight. You're not dumb; you can pick up on patterns. The door at the top is framed by bright yellow light and when you reach it you heave a sigh of relief as it swings open easily under your touch.  _ Finally.  _ As soon as it's open, you have to squeeze your eyes shut to avoid being blinded by the light. When you open them, the door to the basement has closed behind you, and Meg is nowhere to be seen. Figures. Maybe she’ll pop up again, though you sort of hope she doesn't. There's a reason you don't like to think about her. You try the door, but it's locked all on its own, like you're in a horror movie. Who knows, maybe you are. 


	2. Visions in the Hallway

You're standing in a kitchen, and you recognize it instantly. It's yours from your childhood, and as you look around, your mom is standing at the counter washing dishes. 

“Ah! There you are,” she says when she notices you. “Are you ready to go?” 

“Go? Go where?” you ask. 

“To school, of course,” she replies. “The bus will be here in just a few minutes, you better get moving.” She shakes her head and sighs. “Always messy, you are.” She grabs a comb off the counter and walks over to run it through your hair. “Get your stuff,” she says before planting a kiss on the top of his head. “I love you.” She then takes you by the shoulder and moves you towards the door. 

When you exit the kitchen, you're not in the front hall like you should be. You're in a hallway, lined with lockers and lit up by half-dead fluorescent lights. You instantly feel a shudder come over you. It's your middle school, a place you hoped you'd never have to see again. But here you are, so you press forward, looking for a way out. 

“Frank! Hey, Frank!” 

You turn around and see two kids running towards you, and it takes you a moment to process who they are. “Dustin? Miles?” 

“Yeah man,” Dustin says. “What's up?” 

“There's some, there's some weird shit going on right now,” you tell them honestly. Dustin and Miles were what made middle school almost bearable. 

“Really? Like what?” Miles asks. 

“I dunno man,” you sigh. You have to remind yourself that these aren't  _ actually  _ Dustin and Miles, and are instead just visions produced by your memories of them. At least, that's your working hypothesis. You haven't quite wrapped your brain around this whole situation yet. Either way, they're not going to understand what's going on. 

“Man, shit’s always weird around here,” Miles sighs. “Yesterday, my brother’s girlfriend’s sister told my brother that she saw someone get shot outside her house.” 

Dustin shakes his head. “I wouldn't even be surprised.” 

“Nah,” Miles laughs, punching Dustin on the arm. “You'd freak the fuck out. You can't even handle one of Ashley’s patented glares.” 

“But those feel like  _ being  _ shot,” Dustin protests. “I could watch someone get shot, but that doesn't mean I want a bullet in my gut.” 

“Ashley?” you ask. The name sounds familiar, but you can't quite place it. You've blocked out a fair portion of your middle school years. 

“Don't tell me you got amnesia, dude!” Miles cackles. “Ashley McNamara, the biggest bitch this side of...fuckin’ anywhere, man.”

“She scares the piss outta me,” Dustin adds. “And she turned Jason into a grade-A dick.” 

“Jason,” you repeat, softly, and that's when it all comes flooding back. Jason. Ashley. Of course, how in the world could you forget? “Right, Jason and Ashley.” 

“Fuckin’-a, man,” Miles continues. “Those two are the worst. Well, Ashley is. She made one of the special girls cry, did you know that? And she didn't even apologize. I dunno what Jason sees in her, he used to be a nice guy.”

Dustin gets a sly grin on his face. “Why don't you ask Frankie, here? He has a crush on her too.” 

“What?!” you exclaim. “I do  _ not _ .” You have no idea where Dustin got that idea. You never had a crush on Ashley in all your years in middle school. In fact, you're now recalling the special enmity that the two of you had. 

“You do!” Dustin cries gleefully. “You always wanna be around her, I've seen you chase after her and Jason after school. You better be careful, or he's gonna beat you the fuck up.”

_ He already has _ , you want to say, but you keep your mouth shut. This realm of this period of your life was never something you disclosed lightly. You never told your parents. You told Jamia, you remember. And you told…you told  _ him _ . And that was it. 

“Dude. Dude. Dude,” Miles says, whacking Dustin on the shoulder. “We better fuckin’ beat it. She’s coming.” 

“What?” Dustin says, “Oh shit.” 

Indeed, coming down the hallway was Ashley, one sharp eyebrow raised, glaring disdainfully at the riffraff that fills the hallway. It's then that you find yourself trapped, in a trance, staring at her. Your feet are stuck, you can't move. By the time you wrench yourself out of the state, Dustin and Miles have vanished and Ashley is fast approaching, her gaze locked with yours, a terrifying vision storming down the hall towards you. 

“Frank Iero,” she says, her voice filled with venom. “What are you doing here?” 

“I...I wish I knew,” you tell her honestly.

She's shorter than you, and far more petite, but she's terrifying, her cruel gaze freezing you to your core. “You better figure out a goddamn reason, because if you don't, my boyfriend’s going to show up and he’ll think you're after me again.”

“But I'm not!” you protest. 

Her lips split apart, revealing a grin with too many teeth like a Cheshire Cat. “I know,” she hisses. “I know the truth about you, and I don't like it.” 

“I can't-” 

“You can't  _ what _ ? You can't help it? You can't help being a  _ queer _ ?” She grabs you by the shoulders and shoves you towards the lockers, causing you to stumble. Physical violence isn't Ashley’s fortè, but she's saying more than enough to hurt you. She walks up to you grabs you by the collar of your jacket, holding you in a grip like a vice. “You stay the  _ fuck  _ away from my boyfriend, you fucking fairy.” 

“Let go of me,” you hiss. You're stronger than her.

“He’ll never be yours,” she continues. “Let it go. He's mine, and he always will be.”

“Let. Go. Of. Me,” you repeat. 

“Make. Me,” she spits.

That's it. You're fucking done with this chick. You wrench yourself from her grasp and shove her away from you. Hard. She stumbles backwards them falls flat on her ass. She momentarily looks befuddled, but quickly regained her composure and smiles. It's the most terrifying thing you've ever seen. “It's been nice knowing you, Frank,” she says, before yelling, “Jason! Jason!” 

Oh. No. Jason Morello rounds the corner to find a teary-eyed Ashley sitting on the floor in front of you. He's tall, and handsome for an eighth grader, and seeing him makes your chest ache. “Ashley!” he exclaims, running over to help her. “What happened?” 

“He wanted...he wanted to kiss me! And when I said no, he shoved me!” Ashley wails. Her voice is so full of pain that for a moment you almost believe her yourself. 

Jason turns to you, and you feel your stomach drop. You remember  _ exactly  _ what this was like, the longing, the heartbreak, the physical pain. You don’t want to remember anymore. “Iero, what the fuck did I tell you about staying away from my girlfriend?” he says, his voice icy calm. You see Ashley grinning like a demon behind him. 

“I didn’t- Jason, please, I wasn’t- I didn’t do anything!” you shout, trying to get through to him 

“You calling my girlfriend a liar?” Jason asks, cracking his knuckles. 

“ _ Yes _ !” you cry, pleading, tears building up behind your eyes. 

“Yeah, nobody gets away with that,” he says, grabbing you by the collar of your shirt and shoving you up against the lockers. Everyone else who was in the hallway when you walked in has disappeared. Jason heaves and lifts you clean off the ground, even though, according to all logic and reason, you should be too heavy for him. You look down at your body, and it looks like that of an adult, but you don’t feel like an adult. You feel like a thirteen-year-old, terrified of the boy he was crushing on, bracing to be tossed around like a ragdoll. 

And toss you Jason does. He hurls you around, sending you sprawling to the floor, pain jumping up and down the right side of your body. It hurts just as much as it did back in eighth grade. “I thought you were a nice guy, Frank,” Jason sighs, strolling over towards you. 

“Mutual,” you choke out. 

“But nobody messes with Ashley. Nobody,” he says, before drawing his foot back and kicking you right in the rib cage. Then he draws back again, and kicks  _ again _ . And again. And again. And again. 

_ This isn’t real _ , you tell yourself, but the statement (or is it a prayer?) seems more and empty with every blow to your ribcage. 

Then Jason grabs you by the collar again and clocks you right across the face, hard enough to make you spit out blood. 

_ This isn’t real _ , you think. He’s not really here, he hasn’t been for more than twenty years. “This isn’t real,” you choke out.

“What?” Jason asks. 

“This isn’t real,” you repeat, struggling to remember the woman with the ankh necklace. What did she say about this place? That it’s  _ your  _ house, and that everything in it is yours. Does that include Jason? And Ashley? It’s worth a shot. “This isn’t real, but not just that, this is my house. I built it, I put you in it, and I can kick you out.” 

“What are you talking about?” Jason asks a look of confusion coming over his face. 

“This is my house!” you yell, your spit flying into his face. “And you need to get the  _ hell  _ out of here.” You draw back your arms and ball your hands tightly into fists and punch them both square into Jason’s chest. 

Jason goes flying off of you, the same way he would have if he was punched by someone much older. You scramble to your feet and race away from him, as fast as you can go. You burst out of the hallway and into an entirely new area, turning corner after corner, not stopping to take in the scenery. Finally, you find stairs leading upwards, real, carpeted house stairs spiraling towards the upper levels of the house, and you know that you're supposed to go this way.

You collapse at the base of the stairs, heaving and panting, sobs rising up in your chest. Your soul feels cracked and your chest feels raw, and you're reminded of the time when you smashed a wine glass against a plate and sliced your hand open. You almost had to get stitches because you just wouldn't stop bleeding. The wound wouldn't close, and you wouldn't stop bleeding. It's only then that you cry, sobbing your guts out against the backs of your hands. 

 

You don't know how long you lie there, crying and coughing sometimes, other times just staring at the wall. You know you should ascend the stairs, but you just can't bring yourself to stand up and start climbing. You're so caught up in your own thoughts that you don't hear the approaching footsteps, and you don't know that there's someone else on the stairs with you until you hear a voice say, “Oh no, this won't do at all.” 

You look up, and there she is, framed against the light of the staircase like an angel. 

“Jamia?” you say. 

“Of course it's me,” she replies. 

You feel instant relief as you take in the image of your high school sweetheart-turned wife, in all of her celestial glory. You scramble to your feet and wrap your arms around her and hold her tightly, fearing that she’ll disappear if you let go. “You're here,” you whisper, and that's when you know, you have to explain what's going on. She may not understand, but she has a better chance of getting it than anyone else you've encountered so far. “I have something to tell you,” you say. 

“Let’s go upstairs first,” she suggests. 

“Yeah,” you agree. “I think this is the way I need to go.” 

You ascend partially balanced on Jamia’s shoulder, trying to keep your legs from collapsing out from under you. You feel your cheek where Jason punched you, but it doesn’t hurt when you poke it. Instead, the pain resonates deep inside your cheekbone, the ghost of an ache from many years ago. 


	3. Apparitions in the Bathroom

You sit at the top of the stairs and explain everything to Jamia.

“So,” she says, “let me get this straight. I’m not real?” 

You shake your head. “I don’t think so.” 

“And this isn’t really my aunt’s house?” she asks, gesturing around her. 

“Is this what this place is supposed to be?” you ask. 

Jamia nods. “So you want to get to the top of the house, because you think that’s the way out? And you have to fight everyone you meet along the way?” 

You laugh a little. “No, not  _ everyone _ . I don’t have to fight you, for example. And even the bad people who are in here, I don’t think I have to fight them. I just have to get them to leave somehow. Kick them out, in a sense.”

“You’re not kicking me out, right?” Jamia asks. 

You shake you head. “Never.” 

“Good,” Jamia says, nodding. She looks about the age she was when you first met, and you wonder how you look to her. “C’mon,” she says, pulling you to your feet. “I think I know the way from here.” 

Down the hall you find yourselves in a living room of sorts, filled with kids smoking. You recognize a few. Jamia waves to a group sitting on the couch, two girls and a boy, all holding cards, with a stack in the middle. 

“Hey Jams, what’s up?” the girl calls. “And Frankie, dude, what the hell, it’s been fuckin’ forever since I’ve seen you!” 

“Yeah, it really has, Babs,” you say. Barbara was Jamia’s high school best friend. A nice girl. 

“Jamia’s got me on the scoop, though. I hear you’re going steady!” she continues. “Erin, Jack, this is Frank, Jamia’s boyfriend. Frank, this is my girlfriend, Erin, and her brother, Jack.”

You remember the two of them, too. You remember Erin, at least. You never really knew much about Jack. 

“We’re playing Go Fish,” Barbara informs you and Jamia. “You wanna join?” 

“Uh, I’ll pass,” you tell her. 

“Hang on Babs, I need to speak with Frank for a quick sec,” Jamia says, then she takes you by the arm and leads you away from the fray. “Is there anyone here you need to kick out?” she asks.

You around the room. There’s barely anyone you recognize, much less people who you want to kick out. You shake your head. 

“Then we don’t need to be here,” Jamia says, and pulls you out of the room. 

 

“I’ve been starting to think about this like a video game,” you tell Jamia as the two of you round yet another corner of the seemingly endless corridors that make up this particular floor of the house. “I’ve gotta beat the boss on every level, then I get to move up to the next one. We won’t find the stairs to the next level until I beat this level’s boss.” 

“Who do you think this level’s boss is?” Jamia asks. 

“I have no idea,” you say, shaking your head. There was a lot of shit that went down during your high school years. You can’t imagine what could possibly be at the end of this “level,” so to speak. At least, you think this is supposed to be your high school years. 

“And what about the final boss? Isn’t there usually a final boss at the end of most video games? Who or what could that be?” she continues. 

“I, uh, I have a couple ideas,” you tell her. “But it’s nobody you know, at least, not at this point in your life. I don’t really know how your memories are supposed to work.” 

Jamia shrugs. “Me neither.” 

As you reach the end of this hallway, you see a set of paneled glass double doors, leading out to a midnight balcony. “Jamia!” you call, pointing towards it. “A way out!” 

Jamia cocks her head and squints a little bit. “I don’t see anything. You’re just pointing to a blank wall.”

“But there are doors…” you trail off, trying to see what’s through them, but you can’t see past the darkness of the outdoors. “I guess I have to do this one on my own.” You’re not happy about having to leave Jamia behind, but you figure that this must be the final boss, and that’s why you have to go on your own. You take her hand and promise her, “I’ll be right back.” 

“Okay,” she sighs. “I’ll just...stay here, then.” 

You pray she’ll still be there when you get back. You press forward and swing through the door and onto the balcony. The warm, humid air of a midsummer’s night hits your face as you step outside. Standing on the balcony is a boy, and you know who he is before he turns around. You can’t say you didn’t expect to see him, but you didn’t think that facing him would be the most challenging part of this...realm. 

“Chris,” you say. 

“Frank,” he replies, turning around. “I, uh, I wanted to talk to you.” 

“Right. Cool,” you say. “What’s up?” He smells like Chanel No.7. You wish you were surprised. 

“I think we should break this off,” Chris says. “This...thing we have going on. It’s just...Lindsay. She’s here. She’s back. From Germany, I mean. And I know you’re single and all...” 

_ Single _ ? Right, Chris came before Jamia. You suppose that explains why she wasn’t allowed in here. 

“I’m, uh, I’m sorry about that,” Chris continues. He does look genuinely ashamed. Did he tell Lindsay what he was doing with you that past semester? You never did find out. 

“It’s fine,” you sigh. You should’ve known better than to get involved with a guy with a girlfriend and a cheating heart. Your high school self should’ve learned his lesson from Jason and Ashley. 

“What? Really? You’re not mad?” Chris asks. 

“Not as mad as Lindsay’s going to be if she finds out what you were up to. Unless she already knows,” you add. 

“And you’re not...you’re not going to tell her?” Chris asks tentatively. 

You roll your eyes. “Just get out of my life, Chris. I need you around less than you think.” You know that Jamia is waiting for you.  

“I...okay,” he says. He give you one last hesitating look before disappearing through the door, off the balcony, and out of your house. 

You fold your arms. “That was easy,” you remark aloud.  _ Too easy.  _ There doesn’t seem to be a way off the balcony, so you go back inside. There’s no easy out for you yet. When you get through the doors, you discover that you’re in a completely different area than you were in before, and Jamia is nowhere to be found. 

“Jamia?” you call. No answer. The hall is one you vaguely recognize, but can’t quite place. “Jamia?” you call again, but there’s no sign of her. She’s vanished into the labyrinth of the house. “JAMIA!” you shout, and you think she’s gone for good until you hear, 

“Frank?” 

“Jam-” you start to say as you turn around, but it’s not Jamia at all. It’s Meg. She’s much taller and lankier this time, but it’s still undeniably her. “Meg.” 

“Frank!’ she exclaims, racing over to you and wrapping you in a hug that’s disproportionately tight with regards to her wiry frame. “Holy shit, I fucking missed you!” 

“I missed you too, Meg,” you say. “You were in…” You forget where she moved away to. Her parents packed up the car when the two of you were eight and then she was gone. 

“Virginia,” Meg replies. “My mom’s still there, I’m just visiting Dad for the summer. They got divorced in January.” 

Of course, the summer. That summer. You remember it so clearly. Jamia got sent to live with her aunt in Colorado and your friends ditched you for the summer. And Meg moved back. Just for two months, she came back. 

“Now c’mon,” she motions for you to follow her. “Dad’s house is pretty cool. I have something to show you.” Then, she disappears through a door that you hadn’t noticed before, shutting it behind her. 

You don’t want to follow her. On your  _ life  _ you don’t want to follow her, because you’re 98 percent certain about what the house has thrown in front of you for this particular “challenge” and you don’t want to face it. You’d forgotten it, blocked it out, moved on to new things, new people, but now you have to remember. So you follow her. You follow Meg through the door. Meg, your childhood best friend. Meg with orange hair and fire in her eyes. Meg, who loaned you her comic books and took you on imaginary quests. Meg who moved to Virginia. Meg who came back to New Jersey only to shoot herself in her dad’s bathroom at the end of the summer, a hole in the side of her head large enough to drop a nickel through. 

When you come through the door you’re standing in a bathroom, painted a dull, aching yellow, with another closed door on the other side. It’s empty, no sign of Meg. You walk over to the sink and flip on the faucet. It works, gushing out cool, clean water into the drain. You stare into the mirror, and your younger self stares back, red spiky hair, lip ring, and all. You hold your hands up to the mirror and they’re disturbingly blank, as opposed the hands you see in front of you. Your younger self was a hell of a lot healthier than you, but at least you have more tattoos now. Some of the tiles on the floor are cracked, but otherwise, nothing is amiss. Maybe this isn’t what you thought. 

Then you go through the next door. It leads to another bathroom, identical to the one before. Same yellow paint, same cracked tiles. Still no Meg. Only this time, there’s a light spray of red across the wall. You don’t have to examine it closely to know that it’s blood. You instantly want out. You don’t care if you have to stay in this house forever, so long as you don’t have to see this. You didn’t see it in real life, you don’t understand why you have to encounter it now. You turn around, trying for the door you came in through, but it’s gone. Disappeared. Poof. Vanished. The only option now is forward. 

The next door leads to yet another bathroom, which looks exactly the same, once again, only this time with more blood splattered across the wall like a dash of red spray paint. There are are drops on the toilet seat as well. This is exactly what you thought. You shut your eyes and continue or forward. 

The next bathroom is covered in blood, and you can see blood-covered chunks of what is probably brain matter all over the wall. Blood is running down the inside of the toilet bowl, staining the water a faded pink. You move on, gritting your teeth as you turn the handle to the next bathroom. 

In the next bathroom, the toilet bowl is full of blood. You didn’t know that that much blood could come out of a person. The room smells like death; it’s overpowering, even though there’s no sign of Meg’s body. You clap your hand over your nose and your eyes water. 

Finally. There she is, in the next bathroom. She’s lying with her legs on the ground and her head on the toilet seat, all of the blood draining from her brain into the toilet beneath it. Her face is pale and her eyes are dead and there’s a gun lying beside her limp hand, an apparition of the girl you once new. The girl long gone. 

You shuffle over towards her body and lift it gently off of the toilet seat. It’s feels delicate, yet heavy in your arms, like you’re holding a ceramic figure filled with lead. Her skin is ice under your hands. 

“I miss you, Meg,” you tell her. 

She doesn’t respond, of course. 

“I miss you,” you repeat. “I wish you hadn’t died.” You slump down with your back against the wall and her body in your lap. “I wish I could’ve stopped it somehow, stopped you from killing yourself. But I guess I couldn’t have, even if I’d known. We were too far apart. Your own dad couldn’t stop you.” You shut your eyes as white-hot tears run silently down your cheeks, scorching them. “I miss you,” you say one final time. 

You look down at her body, and suddenly, it starts to disintegrate. “Meg!” you shout. “No, no, no, no, no!” But you can’t stop Meg’s body from becoming a pile of ashes in your lap. You scoop the ashes up into your hands and look around for something to do with them. Then you spot it. A vase has materialized on the bathroom counter, and you drop Meg’s ashes unceremoniously into it. You look down at your hands, which are now covered in blood and ash. Death sure isn’t pretty. No, it’s ugly and horrifying and scary and fucking agonizing. It’s so agonizing; no wonder your younger self was obsessed with it. No wonder  _ he  _ was obsessed with it. No wonder you’re obsessed with it now. 

Maybe it’s time to stop being obsessed with it. 

You step out into the hall. It’s an old, worn passageway. The floor is rickety and the walls could use a fresh coat of paint. You take a breath. Right. That had to be the end of the level. Now you need to find the stairs to the next one. Or find Jamia. Or both. 

Just then, he heard a voice booming from behind him, “Frank! There you are, the man of the hour!” 

You whirl around. “Alex?”

“C’mon, man, the guys have been waiting for you! It’s  _ your  _ record release party,” Alex Saavedra explains. “Or, your band’s, at least,” he adds. 

_ Oh _ . So that’s where you are. “Yeah, great,” you say, and you allow Alex to lead you out into the foyer. “Hey, Alex, have you seen Jamia?” you ask. 

“I have not,” he answers. “But here’s Shaun and Hambone! I found Frank!”

“Where you been, man?” Shaun asks. “You’ve been missing the party.” 

“I’ve been looking for Jamia,” you explain. “Have you two seen her?” 

“Hoo, wow!” Hambone hoots. “She’s got you  _ whipped _ . I think she’s upstairs, bro, enjoying the party like everyone else.” 

“Thanks, I’ll. I’ll be right back,” you say, before dashing off. You’re wracking your brain to try and remember the layout of this house, when you crash headfirst into someone. “Fuck!” you exclaim, just as the other guy cries, “Shit!”

You stop and stare. “Mikey?” 

“Hey Frank,” Mikey greets you. “Swinging party, huh?”

“Yeah, uh, it’s great,” you say. 

“I’m headed upstairs, the cooler’s out of beer down here,” Mikey says. 

“Yeah, cool, I’m headed that way too,” you agree hurriedly. 

“Congratulations on your album by the way,” Mikey tells you as you head up the stairs. “The next phase of your life starts now.”

You grip the railing tighter. “I guess it does.” 

Jamia is standing at the top of the stairs, older now, and a true sight for sore eyes. It’s all you can do not to run over to her and lift her off the ground. “Jamia!” you call. 

“Hey Frank,” she says. “Enjoying the party?” 

“It’s nice, I guess,” you tell her. “But I’m kinda tired. I wanna get out of this house.” 

Jamia cocks her head. “Really? It’s not even midnight yet.” She squints at you. “Hang on...oh. You mean  _ this  _ house. Right. The thing. Yeah...I’ll take you home,” she says. 

You let out a sigh of relief. You don’t have to re-explain everything. Instead, you let Jamia lead you through another door. Before you make it through, however, someone catches you by the sleeve. 

It’s Mikey. “You leaving already?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” you tell him, not quite able to meet his eyes. 

“Well, I’ll catch you on the flip side, dude,” he says. 

“Yeah,” you mutter as you slip through the door. “I’m sure you will.” This journey is far from over and you know it.


	4. Spirits on the Stairwell

There’s no one on the other side of the door. You and Jamia stand in a completely deserted and darkened hallway that you don’t recognize at all. No hint of familiarity. 

You lean over to Jamia and whisper, “Do you know where we are?”

“No,” she whispers back. She then pauses before whispering again, “Why are we whispering?”

“I don’t know,” you say. “I just feel like we should.” The house is silent and still as the air before a thunderstorm, calm, yet crackling with the potential for something devastating. You move forward through the dark hallway, your fingers intertwined lightly with Jamia’s. 

That’s when two figures emerge from the darkness. It takes Frank only a moment to recognize them. 

“Welcome to the band, Frank!” Ray says, clapping him on the shoulder. “I know you’ll be a great fit.” 

You don’t know what to say. You know what you  _ said _ , all those years ago, but you don’t know if you have the heart to say those same things now. 

“C’mon,” Ray continues. “Let us take you out. Gerard and Otter are probably already there.” 

“I-” you start, but Mikey cuts you off by slinging an arm over your shoulder. 

“C’mon,” he adds. “Our treat. I’m serious.”

“I really should-” you try again, and you turn around to look for Jamia, but she’s gone, vanished into the darkness of the hallway. Of fucking course. Is there any other way this could have possibly gone? You think at the fourth level of this godforsaken house you could catch a break, but no. Not this time. 

So you follow Ray and Mikey down the hallway. Why the fuck not? They were your friends, weren’t they? Still are. Should be, anyway. And they seem to know what they’re doing, where they’re going. You follow them through a single door at the end of the hall. But this door is strange, because it’s not wood or glass, it’s metal, with a strange patterned handle, and it’s…

A bus door. It’s a bus door and you’re in a bus, and you  _ know  _ this bus, you have to, you’ve spent months if not years of your life on this bus. It stinks of sweat and it’s stuffy as hell. 

Ray is lying in his bunk in front of you, fanning himself with a sheet of paper. “This is the last Warped I ever do, I swear,” he pants. “It’s too damn hot in California during the summer. Fresno can kiss my ass.”

You look around the rest of the bus. It’s deserted, aside from you and Ray. “Where is everybody?” you ask. You remember Gerard holing himself up in here on this tour, but he doesn’t seem to be present this time. 

“Gerard is getting some water, I think. Or maybe he’s off doing sound shit. I don’t remember.” Thank God you don’t have to face him yet. “Bob is probably off with Cortez,” Ray continues, “And I think Mikey’s in Fall Out Boy’s bus. Again.”

“Really? Wh-” Oh. Right. Mikey told you about this, though not until after the summer was over. 

“I have no idea. Crank the AC up, will you?”

You look over at the panel. “Sorry. It looks like it’s as high as it’ll go.”

“Fuck,” Ray says, flipping over and burying his face in his pillow. “Can you run out and get me something then? Preferably something non-alcoholic, we have to play later, but I’m not really picky.” 

You nod. “Gotcha.” You haven’t thought about Warped ‘05 in a long time. But now that you think about it, despite the heat, spirits were high. You don’t know if they were ever this high again. 

But as soon as you’re through the bus door it’s gone. Your back in another living room, and this time, you know it. It’s  _ your  _ house, for real this time. However, there’s still no sign of Jamia. Instead, James stands in front of you. 

“Do you really wanna do this?” he asks. “Yell your heart out again? This isn’t Pencey Prep, Frank. People are gonna care what you have to say. People are gonna be  _ listening _ .”

“It’s my safety, not yours,” you tell him automatically. You know how this conversation went, and you think it’s pointless to have it again. Leathermouth is over and done with. Now, however, the world is getting soft and fuzzy, and you turn your head and see someone standing in the doorway. 

It’s Lindsey. You know she’s not supposed to be here, she’s totally out of place in this memory, and she looks like she knows it too. She’s sharp around the edges, a stark contrast to the blurring room around you, an iron cross in a world made of cotton. 

“Hey,” she says. 

“Lindsey,” you say. “With an ‘E’.” 

“With an ‘E’,” she agrees, raising an eyebrow. 

“What are you doing here?” she asks. 

“What are  _ you  _ doing here?” you counter. “This is my house.”

She nods. “Fair play.” She then turns around and starts to walk through the door before turning back around and saying, “So? Are you coming?”

“Where to?”

“Up and out,” Lindsey says. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? To get out?”

The air is thick and almost smoky around you as you follow Lindsey out the door. “But seriously, what  _ are _ you doing here? I barely ever knew you.” Lindsey was always just...Lindsey. Gerard’s wife. They were never friends, never close. They didn’t even hate each other. 

“You tell me,” she answers. “Like you said, it’s  _ your  _ house.” 

“I didn’t invite you in here.”

“Yet here I am. You didn’t invite the vast majority of these people, yet we’re here anyway,” Lindsey continues. “I’m not here to bother you, my intentions aren’t bad, if that makes you feel any better.”

You sigh. “No, your intentions never were bad, were they? No worse than mine, anyway.”

“They weren’t,” Lindsey agrees. “I like to think I’m not a bad person.”

“I never saw you as such.”

“I never saw you as a bad person either. Hardly anyone does.”

“That never fixed anything, though, did it?”

Lindsey laughs. “No, it did not, as much as we wanted it to. We could be the best people in the world, which we’re not, and the greatest of friends, which weren’t, and it still would not have fixed anything. There was never a solution for you, not in this world, not in this lifetime. At least, not one that involved him.” 

You flop down onto the floor. “No. The world isn’t that pretty.”

Lindsey smiles down at you. “You always were a pessimist.”

“Realist,” you correct her. 

“That’s what all pessimists say. Now come on, you don’t wanna mope around this dumb ass dream house all day, do you?”

“You’re self-aware,” you note. Even with Jamia you had to explain what was going on. Lindsey seems to know automatically. Maybe you should’ve talked to her more before now. 

She cocks her head. “I try. Now get the hell up, we’re almost there.”

“Where?”

“The stairwell,” she answers simply, and you follow her further down the hall. 

The stairwell. Right. You follow her down the hall. Finally she stops and turns around to face you. She’s not the tallest woman in the world, but she reaches up high enough that her hand disappears into darkness, then she pulls on something, and a ladder folds down in front of you. 

“What’s that?” you asks. 

“A ladder,” she answers. 

“I know  _ that _ , but where does it lead?” 

“Think about it, Frank. You’re a smart guy.”

You think a moment. Ladders like that lead to attics. You had one in your childhood home. Attics are always at the very top of the house. This is the last level, the final boss, it has to be. “I don’t want to go up there,” you tell Lindsey. 

“Good thing you don’t have to. There’s even another way out of here, if you can find it. But think about it, if you don’t go up that way, will you ever truly be free?” Lindsey pauses and taps her chin. “You know what, that sounded cheesy. Go or don’t, your choice. But you’re in here for a reason, I promise.”

You look around. “Is Jamia here?”

“You can find her if you look,” Lindsey says. “But you don’t need her right now. You need to go up that ladder and get out of this house.” 

“I do need her,” you protest. 

“In general? Absolutely. Right now? No. This is for you to do on your own.” 

You shut your eyes and take a deep breath. “Okay.” When you open your eyes, Lindsey is gone, but the ladder remains, ascending into the ceiling like a stairway to heaven. The hallway is dark, but the ladder is lit by a single patch of dusty light, like a spotlight. Slowly, you approach it and begin to climb.


	5. The Ghost in the Attic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this chapter is only partially accurate, but I wrote a while ago so eh.

The attic smells like dust and ancient perfume, same as your attic back home. It’s dim, the only light coming from a single lightbulb hanging above the ladder. There are vents at either end, though no sunlight filters through them. It’s cluttered, with boxes stacked everywhere, piles of clothes crowding the corners, and a bookshelf strewn with every item imaginable. 

And then there he is, standing with his back to you like he hasn’t left that spot in years. Like he’s been haunting it; the ghost in your attic. He doesn’t notice you yet, not until you pull yourself to stand upright in the attic and clear your throat. Gerard whirls around, his face lighting up as he sees you. “Frank,” he says. “There you are. I swear, I thought you’d never get here.” 

“You’re in my attic,” you say, kind of dumbly. 

“Well, yeah,” he laughs. “Where else would I be?” 

“I don’t know.” He’s always been  _ here _ , all these years, where else could he possibly have been? 

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Gerard continues, still smiling. “I have so many new ideas, I wanna run them by you. We can start with-”

“Gerard,” you say, cutting him off. “C’mon.” 

“What?”

“Cut the shit,” you tell him. You’ve rehearsed this conversation a million times, but never got around to spitting out the words.  _ Cut the shit _ . 

“What?” Gerard asks again, taken aback. 

“Quit pretending everything’s okay,” you say. 

“Everything is okay,” Gerard says, a look of confusion growing over his face. 

“No it’s not!” you say, biting back a shout. “You’re in my house.”

“And?”

“You’re in  _ my  _ house,  _ my  _ dwelling,  _ my  _ space. You don’t belong here,” you continue. You can feel hot tears pricking the backs of your eyelids. “I think it’s time to get out.” 

“Wha- why?” 

You laugh, harsh and hollow. “God, you really don’t know? All these ambitions you had, all these illusions of grandeur, you were always as naive as a child. I looked at you like God!” you spit. “You could’ve hung the moon and the stars in the sky for the way I looked at you, and you saw none of it.” 

“I saw, Frank,” he protests, softly. 

“No, you didn’t,” you tell him. “You were  _ everything _ to me. And you didn’t even notice. I guess it was partially my fault, for never saying anything, though I guess even if I did say something you would’ve found a way to not hear me.” 

“I always hear you.” 

“You didn’t. I promise, you didn’t. You still aren’t hearing me now. I loved you all these years, even when I hated you, I still loved you. I still couldn’t let you go.” You shake your head. “But it’s time for you to leave, Gerard. Leave my house.”  _ Leave my head _ . “I’m forgetting you,” you continue. “I’m letting you go.” 

“You really want me to leave?” he asks, sounding slightly heartbroken. 

_ Please _ . He could never be ask heartbroken as you’ve been all these years. “Yes,” you say, and your voice comes out firmer than you expect it to.

“I won’t see you again,” he says. 

“I don’t expect you to.” 

“Goodbye, Frank.”

“Goodbye, Gerard.” 

Then, he descends down the ladder and out of your life, out of your head, out of your house. 

You think you’ll cry, but you don’t. Instead, you just feel empty, standing all alone in the dusty attic. You flop down onto the floor, your arms hanging limp beside you. You don’t know how long you sit there, absorbing the lack of presence around you. Then, you hear a creak above you, and someone sticks her head inside the attic.

It’s the woman with the ankh necklace, her expression kind, but otherwise neutral. “C’mon,” she says, gesturing for you to follow her out the hatch from which she appeared. “Up and out.” 

You oblige, allowing her to take your arm and hoist you outwards. It’s your roof. The roof of your house in New Jersey, the one you live in with Jamia and your 

“You’re through,” the woman says. “Congratulations. How do you feel?”

“Lost,” you confess. 

“Yeah, it’ll be like that for awhile. Luckily for you, you have plenty of people to help you feel less that way.” The woman nods to the window. 

“Frank! Frank!” Jamia’s voice calls from inside. She flings open a window. “Frank, what the hell are you doing out there? Lily wants you to read her a story, and James just called. He wants to talk about the tour dates.” 

“Tell Lily I’ll be right inside. And I’ll call James later,” you say. You look back towards the woman. 

She nods. “Go on.” 

“I will,” you say. And you climb back inside the window of your house. 


End file.
